Early Life and Education
Baptized on 26 April 1655 at St Gregory by Paul's, he was the son of Thomas Blackall (bapt. 1621; died 1688), freeman of the Haberdashers' Company and later alderman of the City of London, and his wife, Martha (bapt. 1625; d. 1701?), daughter of Charles Ofspring, rector of St Antholin, Budge Row, and trier of the second presbyterian classis (or eldership) of London. Blackall's father owned land in several counties as well as property in the city, and although he conformed to the established church may have retained some puritan sympathies.
During Blackall's youth his parents resided in Lordshold Manor, an ‘ancient brick house’ in Dalston, Middlesex (VCH Middlesex, 10.89). He was educated in nearby Hackney, perhaps at the free school of which Robert Skingle was master, before being admitted as a pensioner to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, on 26 April 1671. He graduated BA in 1675, proceeded MA in 1678, and was elected in 1679 (by the interest, it was rumoured, of William Wake) to a fellowship, which he resigned in 1687. He was ordained deacon on 11 March 1677 and priest on 19 December 1680. The university awarded him the degree of DD in 1700.
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